So passe and old skool--I used to smoke. First time I had the audacity to do it on my front stoop when I thought mom was in bed on a lovely summer night! darn those mommy receptors!! Her disapproval enveloped in silence was so deafening--I didn't try that again, until I went away to Tuskegee Institute (now University) and Newport's was the choice! so all of us smoked that was 1969! The ending of the hippie generation and our peace signs that today's youngin's think they invented --haha!
But I was always an independent free spirit--and moved on to Eve cigarettes with the lovely flowery emblems--think the commecially hip rally of the "Corporate woman of the 70'." I traveled a lot during my Spring recess from College by myself going around discovering things-in the Caribbean.. While in St. Maarten, I found these beautifully packaged cigarettes in deep turquoise and gold boxes,with "Her Majesty's Seal" on it
I brought back cartons of it--and when they ran out I smoked Dunhills. I was going to go classy no matter what-I had a jade cigarette box and the matching lighter and loved to smoke and have my coffee.
All during my child bearing years spaced 4-4 -7-4 years apart I stopped smoking through each pregnancy, because luckily I had enough consciousness and protective concern for my unborn children,that they did not need to ingest nicotine.
By 1985- my 3 year old started hiding my cigarettes, and micking the commercials to stop smoking--how cute and sweet Ithought.! But one day- I read that women who smoke develop lines around their mouth from pursing their lips--and I sat in my kitchen and thought --eeuuuww!! aw naw--that day I took my last drag, and decided not to make an issue of it, didn 't make an announcement--and with trepidation went on day after day without a cigarette until one day--I realized a year had passed and there would be no turning back.
That was long before the studies on second and now third hand smoke, the lawsuits--the cancers. Today cigarettes contain 55 different toxins! Significan amounts of nicotine convert estrogen yes guys you have estrogen into an anti-estrogen called catechol estrogen damaging your DNA.
For women 1,200,000 ( that's one million two hundred thousand )will develop breast cancer, this year! just add to every other toxin in the air,in our water--including when you shower and flouridated wated seeps through the skin , and a hot shower is a consomme of germs--despite the positive eons from the water--the air has way too many toxins and germs overwhelming our bodies.--Why? why add more dirty bricks to your temple? For women it still looks unfeminine when we smoke--no matter how pretty the packaging-for men,well- when we age the causes of death are pulmonary. The lungs filling up with liquid-Obviously--if you are not going to take care of your liver the major organ, you are not going to care about your lungs--nothing that anyone can say will make a person stop- because it is social, physical and psychological.
It is hip--a nerve relaxer--convenient--a social stimulator and a life exterminator!!
It is the power of the mind, will --savvy and knowledge, self love and pragmatism that will get one to stop.
All of the above is what made me stop, because when I did I still LOVED the coolness of it--I stopped because I loved me more than I loved whatever I thought that smoking did to me or for me. Because it pragmatically made good sense. It is an addiction but once again--it is tailored to your genetic and psychologcal leanings--you have to figure out what can you substitute or is more important than smelling like smoke, stinking up the house, your finger tips your hair--oh and I know, some folks don't even have these issues--YET.
When you are young it makes you feel so grown up--ohh getting carded--maybe you can go do what you have to do and make plans to let it go like all things that have to fall away--but if you have been at it past 50? unless you are a cigarette a day smoker you have to weigh in your options--it will always be an individual choice--as the cigarette manufactures so well know--you should at least invest in the company of the brand you smoke, right? oh ok--not--you're not feeling that loyal--it's your call- your addiction---is up front and center , it's your will versus theirs!! LIVE!
President Obama is fighting his addiction--supposedly there is a treatment that can be accessed via telephone--tough road ahead!!
Posted By: Marta Fernandez
Friday, January 16th 2009 at 2:45PM
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